Coming full circle:
Parish priest returning to alma mater to share his love of faith
By John Shaughnessy
The standing ovation came spontaneously, in the middle of the Mass.
Children, parents, teachers and other parishioners rose from their seats to shower Father William Munshower with applause.
The touching moment happened during the end-of-the-school-year Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Indianapolis, the last school Mass that Father Munshower would celebrate before his retirement as a longtime parish priest on July 1.
Before the standing ovation on June 2, the priest of 48 years gave a homily in which he told the school children how much he enjoyed watching them grow and mature through the years.
As they listened, the students, parents and teachers thought of their own memories of Father Munshower:
How he always taught each eighth-grade class the 23rd Psalm, how he gave a quarter each week to the student who sang the most passionately during the school Mass, how he gave blessings to the school’s sports teams and how he even traveled around the archdiocese to see them play, including one tournament when he led the cheering for a fifth- and sixth-grade girls’ volleyball team for four days as they reached the championship game.
So when Father Munshower ended his homily by softly telling the children, “Love ya, love ya,” they already knew.
And so the standing ovation began.
Coming full circle
As he sits in the parish office, Father Munshower wipes his glasses, strokes his gray-white beard and says, “I don’t like to call it retiring. Priests don’t retire. Once a priest, always a priest. You would never be without ministry or some responsibility. I’m resigning as pastor of St. Thomas.”
After Father Munshower steps away from St. Thomas, the 74-year-old priest will walk into Cathedral High School in Indianapolis when the new school year begins in August. He will provide spiritual guidance for students as he returns to the school where his journey to become a priest essentially started.
“I admired the priests and brothers at Cathedral,” says the 1950 graduate who was president of his class during his junior and senior years. “They were generous, exciting—the kind of people I wanted to be. One of the great priests in many of our lives was Father George Powers. He was a priest ahead of his time. He was into social justice, social action.”
The student followed the teacher as Father Munshower later took part in the civil rights movement, even marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His focus on justice and equality continues today. Now, he hopes to shape the lives and faiths of high school students.
“Most priests get out of high school and go onto real life. Here I am, reverting,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a terribly important part of our ministry to stay in touch with our young. I want to come up with some kind of way of turning them onto their Catholicism, their Christianity—turning them on to the person of Jesus and seeing the Christian life as an extension of that.
“It has to be an enjoyable religion for that age group. Not that there isn’t suffering, but faith should be a joyful experience. We have to help them find that.”
‘I do not do books. I save souls.’
Peggy Obergfell Lowe laughs when she remembers that she seriously considered quitting her job as parish secretary shortly after Father Munshower became pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in Indianapolis in 1973.
“When I first saw him, I didn’t know what I was getting,” Lowe recalls. “He had a beret and a black overcoat. I told him I was supposed to show him how to keep the books for bingo. He said, ‘I do not do books. I save souls.’ I had 10 children, and I was going to quit.”
She reconsidered and stayed for 11 of the 20 years that Father Munshower was pastor of Holy Spirit Parish.
“Those were the best days of my life,” she says. “He did a lot for a lot of people. He started the St. Vincent de Paul Society there. He started the women’s club. He got the whole parish to be active and be like a family. It was so pleasant to go to work there. He would do anything for you.”
He was there for her at one of the hardest times of her life—when her husband, Norm Obergfell, died.
“I was in Montana when my husband died of a heart attack here,” she says. “Father had to call me to tell me. He said, ‘Peggy, he’s just gone to the other side.’ He took care of everything for me. He’s so religious, and he believes so much in prayer. He’s a very good man and a man of God.”
48 years and 20 questions
In the Catholic Church, no one works more closely in the lives and faith of its believers than a parish priest. In his 48 years as a priest, Father Munshower has spent nearly all of his time in parishes, including St. Paul Parish in Tell City, St. Agnes Parish in Nashville, Holy Spirit and St. Thomas Aquinas—where he has served as pastor since 1994.
Forty-eight years of baptisms, first Communions and weddings. Forty-eight years of hospital visits, last rites and funerals. Forty-eight years of preparing homilies, attending meetings and fielding emergency phone calls in the middle of the night. Forty-eight years of offering guidance to people at all stages of life—and still having time to visit the school, cheer at the games and open his residence to families on Halloween.
“If I could say one thing to young priests, it would be, ‘Be present.’ Let others do the directing and the planning,” he says. “It’s very important to be present. If you believe in your priesthood, you’re bringing a ‘grace’ quality to that gathering that no one else has been ordained to do.”
St. Thomas parishioner Bob Bonner has seen Father Munshower add that quality to group discussions about faith.
“He’s always interested about diversity in the Church,” Bonner says. “He talks about it. He looks for it.”
Bonner laughs and adds, “He’s a people person. You can’t go anywhere with him without him knowing a bunch of people. He knows their families and he’ll ask about their grandparents, their aunts and uncles. And if he doesn’t know someone, he’ll seek them out. I always swear he has 20 questions that he asks people—to get to know them. I was on the other side of those questions once.”
Fading diets, lasting influences
Like Lowe and Bonner, Father Clement Davis laughs several times when he talks about Father Munshower. He recalls when he was assigned for the first time as a parish priest, as an associate pastor at Holy Spirit in 1979 when Father Munshower was the pastor.
“My first day, I had to weigh in because he was beginning one of his many diets,” Father Davis recalls. “I had to post my weight on the refrigerator with the others. The diet would dissolve as soon as the bread would be passed. He’s too much a lover of good times and good meals.”
The diets faded, but the influence lasted. Father Davis says that Father Munshower showed him the importance of small faith groups, of getting people involved in their parish, of making and keeping connections with parish staff members, other priests and their extended families.
“He was a great mentor to me,” says Father Davis, now the pastor of St. Bartholomew Parish in Columbus. “He will tell people he taught me everything I know. I have pretty much the same attitude that Bill has about people taking pictures during church. Bill always said, ‘It’s OK, as long as I’m in them.’ ”
A glint of Irish mischief
After the end-of-the-school-year Mass, the St. Thomas student council shared this tribute to their priest: “We will miss your smile, your smirk, your infectious laughter, and that glint of Irish mischief in your eye that always encouraged us to not take ourselves too seriously, but to seriously strive to reflect God’s love of us in all that we say and do.”
In one of his final homilies at St. Thomas, Father Munshower told parishioners about a ritual he has kept whenever he drives his car into the church’s parking lot.
He said that when he looks toward the statue of the Blessed Mother near the church entrance, he always offers a prayer for the parish and everyone in it.
He then asked that when people see the statue of Mary after his retirement, they think of him and say a prayer for him.
He added one last thought, the thought of a parish priest who has dedicated his life to God and caring for God’s people.
Father Munshower promised, “I will continue to pray for all of you.” †
